Experimental Narrative of Institutional Care in B.S.Johnson's House Mother Normal
B.S.Johnson's 1971 novel,House Mother Normal,experiments with narrative in the context of the British"deinstitutionalization"of the 1960s.It aims to represent the truth of ageing and the drawbacks of institutionalized elderly care.The novel's mimetic style,with its abnormal syntax,typography,and punctuation as textual mediators,not only displays the inherent changes of ageing but also establishes readers'empathy with the elderly characters through its form.Johnson's narrative further echoes Townsend's and Goffman's criticism of British welfare institutions by deconstructing the artificial"domesticity"promoted by the Welfare State and exposing the physical and discursive discipline of the elderly in residential care.Johnson's novel,therefore,reveals how British elderly care institutions exacerbated ageism,and demonstrates that innovative literary narratives are an effective means of resisting ageism.
House Mother Normalnarrative experimentinstitutional caredeinstitutionalizationageism
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